For my independent reading book I decided to choose The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song seems is a really good book, and I saw the movie and it was fantastic so I decided to read the book as well.
Genre
The Last Song is a romance novel by Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song fits in this genre because it is a story about a summer romance between Ronnie and Will and their struggle for their summer romance. Ronnie is a rebellious teenager who is forced to spend the summer with her dad and she does not like the idea of it at all. When she meets Will her whole summer is turned upside down in a world of romance and summer love. Will makes her happy and makes her realize how much she loves her dad. But when Ronnie finds out more about Will she doesn’t like where they are going and they have many fights but their love always prevails. He makes her become less rebellious and more like a nice daughter that she is. He brings out the best in her and then he is one reason why she starts to play the piano again. She never imagined that she would meet her dream guy by him running into her and making her spill her drink all over her shirt. Will is the last person that she ever thought that she would fall in love with but she can’t help falling completely in love with him.
Summary
The Last Song is a story about a rebellious young teenager who has to spend an entire summer with her dad, who she hates, and it is about her journey of falling in love and forgiving her dad. During this story the main character, Veronica “Ronnie” Millers, falls in love with a boy named Will. Will makes her summer better in every way. Ronnie hates her dad at the beginning of the story but during her summer she finds a way to forgive him. At the beginning of the summer, Ronnie is forced to stay at her dad’s house and she believes that she is going to hate every minute of it but then she decided to go to the beach. At the beach, she meets the boy who will change her life forever. When she goes to the beach she is drinking a milkshake when Will knocks into her and makes her milkshake go all over her. That is the beginning of their summer romance. So, this story is all about Ronnie and Will’s struggle for the love that they both share for each other.
Characters
Veronica “Ronnie” Miller is a teenage girl who has lost sight of goodness in the world. She is sometimes viewed as the protagonist Ronnie is a high school student who couldn’t care less about the future. Ronnie is not yet 18 so she cannot do whatever she want but she acts like she can. Ronnie has been acting this way ever since her father left them three years ago and she blames him for it. Ronnie is sent to her father's house for the summer with her younger brother Jonah, but she is determined to not have a good time and to spend as little time as possible with her father. Even right as they pull up to his house she just walks past him and goes down to the beach. It is at the beach where she meets the guy that will change her summer and her whole life forever. During the story, you see Ronnie start to become less of the rebellious daughter and more of a loving, caring daughter. When her father gets sick she gets very mad at him because he didn’t tell them and she is very upset. An example of when she was upset at her dad is this,”Yes you did. You said you were fine. You're not fine! That was a lie!”. Ronnie in her rebellious attitude Ronnie when she is in love
Will is instantly portrayed as the ladies’ man. Your first impression of him is cocky, spoiled hot guy who is too good to be true. But, that is not the case. Will is a very nice young man who has, admittedly, had a lot of summer flings. Will is always nice and understanding to Ronnie because with her, he has something that he never had for another girl before. That is love. When Ronnie’s dad gets sick, Will took responsibility and acted like the big brother and father figure for Ronnie’s little brother, Jonah. Jonah and his dad were working on a mosaic window for the new church and so when Ronnie’s dad got sick Jonah taught Will how to do everything and they built the mosaic together. Will is forced to go to Vanderbilt and he left Ronnie alone and Ronnie hated him for it. But, at the end of the novel we find out that the only reason of why he did this was to give her some time which is the greatest gift of them all. When Will is flirting with Ronnie one time he comes up to her as she is watching the turtle eggs and he brings all of his camping stuff,”Well, the truth is, the town sorta got together and we decided we just couldn't take another one of your bad hair days.”
Marcus is immediately the bad guy in this book. He is in a relationship with Blaze, who turns out to be Ronnie’s best friend while she is staying with her dad, but he doesn’t treat her well. Marcus thinks that Ronnie is really hot but he cannot understand why Ronnie keeps on rejecting him and so he makes it his goal to get her to be with him. Marcus is the type of guy who is going nowhere in his life and he is most probably going to end up in jail for being caught with drugs. He is dangerous and misbehaving. Near the end of the novel Marcus breaks up with Blaze and kicks her out just because she cannot pay her rent and Ronnie gave up her dress money and gave it to Blaze. Marcus said this when he was kicking Blaze out,"I'm not running a damn homeless shelter!"
Themes
Some major themes in the Last Song are forgiveness and love.
The theme forgiveness appears in this book between Ronnie and her father, Steve. Ronnie dislikes her dad because three years ago he left her and her mother and brother, Jonah. During this book Ronnie begins to be able to forgive her father more and more once she starts to realize that he does love her and Jonah. When Steve gets sick with stomach cancer she starts to read letters that he had wrote to her but she had never opened. When she reads these she finds out that her mom had cheated on him with another man and that is why he left. At that moment she realized how terrible she had been to him and that she should’ve given him a chance.
Love appears in this book from the very start. Some examples are the love between Ronnie and Will or even the love between Ronnie and her little brother Jonah. The love between Ronnie and Will is a very important part of this book. Will helps Ronnie enjoy her summer and be more like herself instead of the rebellious teenager that she tries to be. They both help each other in times of difficulties. Ronnie helps Will forgive himself for the death of his little brother by making him feel loved and filling that hole in his heart that he has tried so desperately to fill. The love between Ronnie and her little brother Jonah appears a lot in the book. When Ronnie is at the fair with Blaze, Jonah warns her that her dad is looking for her and then makes her pay for him to tell his dad that he didn’t see her. Another example of this theme between her and Jonah is when Ronnie gave the money that she was supposed to use to buy a dress with to Blaze; Jonah gave her all of the money that he has collected from her so that she can buy a dress with it.
Conflicts
A major conflict in this story is between Ronnie and her dad. Ronnie despises her dad because he left her family three years ago and she could not forgive him for that. They are constantly having arguments in this story. An example of one argument they had was when Ronnie came back after her curfew and then they fought until Jonah came out and told them to stop and Ronnie acted like the parent and then she yelled at her dad some more. Steve loves Ronnie and hates the fact that she hates him and so he is always trying to make her feel welcomed and loved. One time in the story Steve cooked Ronnie breakfast and he made her bacon and when she came out of her room she looked at it then walked out of the house. After that Steve learnt how to cook vegetarian meals for her just to make her happy. Ronnie knows that he is trying to make her forgive him but she is stubborn and just ignores all of his attempts. When Steve lived with Ronnie, they used to play the piano together, but once he left she stopped all together and when she spent the summer with him Steve constantly played the piano to try to get her to play again and at one point she got so frustrated with him playing the piano that she built a huge wall around the piano just so that he couldn’t play. Their conflicts begin to decrease once she falls in love because she becomes happier and Will actually got her to play the piano again and though Steve didn’t actually say it you could tell that he was extremely happy.
Symbolic Picture
This picture represents the last song because it takes place on the beach. The waves represent love. Even though love might appear at different times and at different places it is always there even though it might appear in different sizes. That relates to the story because at different times in the story you question Ronnie and Will’s love for each other but you still know that it is there even if it is harder to notice. The sand represents their lives. The sand represents their lives because when they leave memories in each other it is like someone walking in sand. The footprints will be there for a very long time and they change the beach. The beach has a lot to do with the story. The beach is where Ronnie and Will first met, it is also where Will camped out with Ronnie in order to watch the turtle eggs, and it is where you realized that Steve’s stomach cancer is more serious then Ronnie is led to believe.
5 Words
1. Gregarious
Unlike Kim, who’s been outgoing and gregarious
* Sociable, likes crowds
2. Expunged
If she doesn’t get into anymore trouble, it’ll be expunged off her record.
* To erase or remove
3. Emaciated
He remembered his dad’s shrunken, emaciated figure toward the end, and he didn’t want his daughter to see him that way.
* Unusually thin or skinny
4. Melancholy
He gave her a melancholy smile.
* A gentle sadness
5. Annihilate
She stared at him, hands on her hips again, as if trying to annihilate him with her death ray vision.
* To make something cease to exist
Similar Works
The Last Song is similar to Dear John in many ways. One way is that they are both written by Nicholas Sparks. Nicholas Sparks tends to write summer romance novels, so they are similar in that way. Another way that the two are similar is that both of the couples met on the beach. Another similarity of these two stories is how quickly they fell in love. Both couples fell in love in a two week period. The last similarity is that in both stories, a father dies. In the Last Song, Ronnie’s father dies of stomach cancer and in Dear John, John’s father had been having lots of heart attacks and he eventually lost the battle of life and died.
The Last Song is also similar to the Lucky One. In both stories the girl is trying to fight her feelings for the guy, but they both fall in love with the guy. In the Last Song, Ronnie is trying to fight her love for Will and in the Lucky One, and Beth has feelings for Logan but her ex is the son of the town judge and she knows that if she and Logan get together then her ex could have her son taken away from her. Another similarity is that in both stories a father dies. In the Last Song, Ronnie’s dad dies of stomach cancer and in the Lucky One, Beth’s son’s father is killed when he is trying to catch her son in a storm and when he caught her son Logan grabbed him and gave him to Beth and went back to save her ex, but the tree house fell on top of him and killed him. The last similarity is that in both stories a conflict separates them but then they overcome the conflict. In the Last Song, Ronnie finds out that she may just be another summer fling and gets really mad at Will but they resolved the conflict by having their first kiss. In the Lucky One, Beth gets mad at Logan because he has a picture of her that Beth gave to her brother in order to keep him safe and Beth got mad because she thought that the reason why her brother had died is because he didn’t have the picture with him but Logan lived because he did have it.
For my independent reading book I decided to choose The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song seems is a really good book, and I saw the movie and it was fantastic so I decided to read the book as well.
Genre
The Last Song is a romance novel by Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song fits in this genre because it is a story about a summer romance between Ronnie and Will and their struggle for their summer romance. Ronnie is a rebellious teenager who is forced to spend the summer with her dad and she does not like the idea of it at all. When she meets Will her whole summer is turned upside down in a world of romance and summer love. Will makes her happy and makes her realize how much she loves her dad. But when Ronnie finds out more about Will she doesn’t like where they are going and they have many fights but their love always prevails. He makes her become less rebellious and more like a nice daughter that she is. He brings out the best in her and then he is one reason why she starts to play the piano again. She never imagined that she would meet her dream guy by him running into her and making her spill her drink all over her shirt. Will is the last person that she ever thought that she would fall in love with but she can’t help falling completely in love with him.
Summary
The Last Song is a story about a rebellious young teenager who has to spend an entire summer with her dad, who she hates, and it is about her journey of falling in love and forgiving her dad. During this story the main character, Veronica “Ronnie” Millers, falls in love with a boy named Will. Will makes her summer better in every way. Ronnie hates her dad at the beginning of the story but during her summer she finds a way to forgive him. At the beginning of the summer, Ronnie is forced to stay at her dad’s house and she believes that she is going to hate every minute of it but then she decided to go to the beach. At the beach, she meets the boy who will change her life forever. When she goes to the beach she is drinking a milkshake when Will knocks into her and makes her milkshake go all over her. That is the beginning of their summer romance. So, this story is all about Ronnie and Will’s struggle for the love that they both share for each other.
CharactersVeronica “Ronnie” Miller is a teenage girl who has lost sight of goodness in the world. She is sometimes viewed as the protagonist Ronnie is a high school student who couldn’t care less about the future. Ronnie is not yet 18 so she cannot do whatever she want but she acts like she can. Ronnie has been acting this way ever since her father left them three years ago and she blames him for it. Ronnie is sent to her father's house for the summer with her younger brother Jonah, but she is determined to not have a good time and to spend as little time as possible with her father. Even right as they pull up to his house she just walks past him and goes down to the beach. It is at the beach where she meets the guy that will change her summer and her whole life forever. During the story, you see Ronnie start to become less of the rebellious daughter and more of a loving, caring daughter. When her father gets sick she gets very mad at him because he didn’t tell them and she is very upset. An example of when she was upset at her dad is this,”Yes you did. You said you were fine. You're not fine! That was a lie!”.
Will is instantly portrayed as the ladies’ man. Your first impression of him is cocky, spoiled hot guy who is too good to be true. But, that is not the case. Will is a very nice young man who has, admittedly, had a lot of summer flings. Will is always nice and understanding to Ronnie because with her, he has something that he never had for another girl before. That is love. When Ronnie’s dad gets sick, Will took responsibility and acted like the big brother and father figure for Ronnie’s little brother, Jonah. Jonah and his dad were working on a mosaic window for the new church and so when Ronnie’s dad got sick Jonah taught Will how to do everything and they built the mosaic together. Will is forced to go to Vanderbilt and he left Ronnie alone and Ronnie hated him for it. But, at the end of the novel we find out that the only reason of why he did this was to give her some time which is the greatest gift of them all. When Will is flirting with Ronnie one time he comes up to her as she is watching the turtle eggs and he brings all of his camping stuff,”Well, the truth is, the town sorta got together and we decided we just couldn't take another one of your bad hair days.”
Marcus is immediately the bad guy in this book. He is in a relationship with Blaze, who turns out to be Ronnie’s best friend while she is staying with her dad, but he doesn’t treat her well. Marcus thinks that Ronnie is really hot but he cannot understand why Ronnie keeps on rejecting him and so he makes it his goal to get her to be with him. Marcus is the type of guy who is going nowhere in his life and he is most probably going to end up in jail for being caught with drugs. He is dangerous and misbehaving. Near the end of the novel Marcus breaks up with Blaze and kicks her out just because she cannot pay her rent and Ronnie gave up her dress money and gave it to Blaze. Marcus said this when he was kicking Blaze out,"I'm not running a damn homeless shelter!"
Themes
Some major themes in the Last Song are forgiveness and love.
The theme forgiveness appears in this book between Ronnie and her father, Steve. Ronnie dislikes her dad because three years ago he left her and her mother and brother, Jonah. During this book Ronnie begins to be able to forgive her father more and more once she starts to realize that he does love her and Jonah. When Steve gets sick with stomach cancer she starts to read letters that he had wrote to her but she had never opened. When she reads these she finds out that her mom had cheated on him with another man and that is why he left. At that moment she realized how terrible she had been to him and that she should’ve given him a chance.
Love appears in this book from the very start. Some examples are the love between Ronnie and Will or even the love between Ronnie and her little brother Jonah. The love between Ronnie and Will is a very important part of this book. Will helps Ronnie enjoy her summer and be more like herself instead of the rebellious teenager that she tries to be. They both help each other in times of difficulties. Ronnie helps Will forgive himself for the death of his little brother by making him feel loved and filling that hole in his heart that he has tried so desperately to fill. The love between Ronnie and her little brother Jonah appears a lot in the book. When Ronnie is at the fair with Blaze, Jonah warns her that her dad is looking for her and then makes her pay for him to tell his dad that he didn’t see her. Another example of this theme between her and Jonah is when Ronnie gave the money that she was supposed to use to buy a dress with to Blaze; Jonah gave her all of the money that he has collected from her so that she can buy a dress with it.
ConflictsA major conflict in this story is between Ronnie and her dad. Ronnie despises her dad because he left her family three years ago and she could not forgive him for that. They are constantly having arguments in this story. An example of one argument they had was when Ronnie came back after her curfew and then they fought until Jonah came out and told them to stop and Ronnie acted like the parent and then she yelled at her dad some more. Steve loves Ronnie and hates the fact that she hates him and so he is always trying to make her feel welcomed and loved. One time in the story Steve cooked Ronnie breakfast and he made her bacon and when she came out of her room she looked at it then walked out of the house. After that Steve learnt how to cook vegetarian meals for her just to make her happy. Ronnie knows that he is trying to make her forgive him but she is stubborn and just ignores all of his attempts. When Steve lived with Ronnie, they used to play the piano together, but once he left she stopped all together and when she spent the summer with him Steve constantly played the piano to try to get her to play again and at one point she got so frustrated with him playing the piano that she built a huge wall around the piano just so that he couldn’t play. Their conflicts begin to decrease once she falls in love because she becomes happier and Will actually got her to play the piano again and though Steve didn’t actually say it you could tell that he was extremely happy.
Symbolic Picture
This picture represents the last song because it takes place on the beach. The waves represent love. Even though love might appear at different times and at different places it is always there even though it might appear in different sizes. That relates to the story because at different times in the story you question Ronnie and Will’s love for each other but you still know that it is there even if it is harder to notice. The sand represents their lives. The sand represents their lives because when they leave memories in each other it is like someone walking in sand. The footprints will be there for a very long time and they change the beach. The beach has a lot to do with the story. The beach is where Ronnie and Will first met, it is also where Will camped out with Ronnie in order to watch the turtle eggs, and it is where you realized that Steve’s stomach cancer is more serious then Ronnie is led to believe.5 Words
1. Gregarious
- Unlike Kim, who’s been outgoing and gregarious
* Sociable, likes crowds2. Expunged
- If she doesn’t get into anymore trouble, it’ll be expunged off her record.
* To erase or remove3. Emaciated
- He remembered his dad’s shrunken, emaciated figure toward the end, and he didn’t want his daughter to see him that way.
* Unusually thin or skinny4. Melancholy
- He gave her a melancholy smile.
* A gentle sadness5. Annihilate
- She stared at him, hands on her hips again, as if trying to annihilate him with her death ray vision.
* To make something cease to existSimilar Works
The Last Song is similar to Dear John in many ways. One way is that they are both written by Nicholas Sparks. Nicholas Sparks tends to write summer romance novels, so they are similar in that way. Another way that the two are similar is that both of the couples met on the beach. Another similarity of these two stories is how quickly they fell in love. Both couples fell in love in a two week period. The last similarity is that in both stories, a father dies. In the Last Song, Ronnie’s father dies of stomach cancer and in Dear John, John’s father had been having lots of heart attacks and he eventually lost the battle of life and died.
The Last Song is also similar to the Lucky One. In both stories the girl is trying to fight her feelings for the guy, but they both fall in love with the guy. In the Last Song, Ronnie is trying to fight her love for Will and in the Lucky One, and Beth has feelings for Logan but her ex is the son of the town judge and she knows that if she and Logan get together then her ex could have her son taken away from her. Another similarity is that in both stories a father dies. In the Last Song, Ronnie’s dad dies of stomach cancer and in the Lucky One, Beth’s son’s father is killed when he is trying to catch her son in a storm and when he caught her son Logan grabbed him and gave him to Beth and went back to save her ex, but the tree house fell on top of him and killed him. The last similarity is that in both stories a conflict separates them but then they overcome the conflict. In the Last Song, Ronnie finds out that she may just be another summer fling and gets really mad at Will but they resolved the conflict by having their first kiss. In the Lucky One, Beth gets mad at Logan because he has a picture of her that Beth gave to her brother in order to keep him safe and Beth got mad because she thought that the reason why her brother had died is because he didn’t have the picture with him but Logan lived because he did have it.
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